By Mark Tellkamp
Head Baseball Coach, Sept. 13, 2007
Sometime around 1839 in upstate New
York, a young man and his friends began going to a pasture near the local
schoolhouse to play a game. It didn’t have a name, not at that moment anyway, as
it was an odd combination of other sporting events: a little bit of Cricket with
some English Rounders thrown in, and something new and unique added as well –
four safe bases, kept inside a field of play by foul lines.
Certainly, the game’s author could not have known that his
afternoon pastime would come to captivate America so that young boys and grown
men alike would close their eyes at night and dream of playing baseball, or that
many would lie awake in their beds, unable to sleep because they were so anxious
to play or even watch a game the next day.
However creative he might have been, Abner Doubleday could
not have imagined that nearly 170 years after that first baseball game 34 young
men would journey halfway across a continent just to play his “pasture.” Over
the Labor Day weekend, however, that’s just what the Illinois Valley Community
College baseball team did. Many of the players’ parents made the journey as
well, to this sacred place of dreams and legends.
We left the college at 6:30 p.m. Thursday, driving 14 hours
through the night to play our first game at Doubleday Field on Friday at 4 p.m.
I sat behind our driver, listening to the banter between the boys for a few
hours, and as most of them slept or tried to do so, I wondered to myself if they
really knew where they were going. Did they have any idea how many baseball
fans, even baseball fanatics, never have had the opportunity to visit
Cooperstown? Did they know they would be playing under the shadows of a
grandstand in which presidents and heads of state once sat to watch the like of
Honus Wagner, Hank Aaron, Mickey Mantle, Willie Mays and most post World War II
Hall of Famers play?
Lucky Barrett, one of our best players, didn’t even know who
Stan Musial was, or Sandy Koufax for that matter, nor did he seem to care about
anything but playing and winning, which as his coach I won’t complain about.
That was before, however, he realized his mere presence on that field as a
player had prompted a crowd of little boys to ask for his autograph after our
first game. He came to me the next day more excited than I’d ever seen him.
You see, whispers had started, first in the stands and then
in the dugout, saying that Mike Schmidt was two blocks away at the Hall of Fame,
and that another Hall of Famer had been in the stands watching our game. Like
most of the kids, though, Barrett wanted to play because while they were looking
forward to visiting the Hall of Fame on Sunday, they came to win a tournament,
and win they did …
We had divided the team into two units,
so everyone on our roster would receive as much field time as possible, naming
them the Eagles and Illinois Valley. Tom Beckman, a former college standout from
Peoria, and Bobby Meier, who played in the Yankee system and now scouts for
Tampa Bay and coaches in the Northwood’s League, jointly managed the Illinois
Valley team.
Joe Hall, a former Major Leaguer with the White Sox and
Detroit, managed the Eagles. A coach in the White Sox system until this past
summer, he also managed the Peoria Chiefs for two years. He typically provides
instruction for our teams off and on throughout the year, and the kids really
look up to him, and for good reason.
The Eagles ultimately lost in the semifinals 8-7 after
winning their first three games by scores of 13-7, 15-5 and 17-2, respectively.
Illinois Valley won by scores of 12-2, 16-1, 17-4 and then
9-2 in the semifinal game, making it back to Doubleday Field for the
championship contest against the Long Island Blue Jays, winning 6-3 behind a
stellar pitching performance by Geoff Mann. Mann, from Ontario, Canada, didn’t
allow a run in his six innings of work.
Next March, we will travel again, this
time to Florida for our annual spring training. In the interim, we’ll make sure
our “student athletes” attend class and apply themselves to their studies, work
to improve their baseball skills, both physical and mental, undertake a major
project to improve our field and related facilities, and run the fundraisers
that pay for those field improvements and trips, including spring training,
which are not paid for or subsidized by the college.
At some point between the start of our season in early March
and the time it ends, some players will realize that they are unable to secure
enough playing time to justify the significant sacrifices necessary to be on a
collegiate team. That’s a tough thing to watch as a coach because each of our
kids was a star at every level before arriving here. Deciding who wins a job,
well, it’s not always clear cut, and as much as I’ve come to love coaching, it
breaks my heart, and I mean really breaks my heart, to be the one that leaves a
kid’s name out of the starting lineup game after game, effectively ending a
dream they had awakened from every day since they were young children.
The reality of spring can wait, though, and as I type these
words it’s 1 a.m. on Tuesday morning and I’m sitting in the front seat of a bus
still three hours from home. In back of me, most of the kids are sleeping, the
very hopes and dreams of parents spread out around America and even the world,
as five of our players are from other countries.
I know what they are dreaming about, as many, many years ago
I too played at IVCC, but aspired for much more. I just looked back over my
shoulder again, and I’m smiling, knowing that many of them are playing in major
league stadiums right now, other giving their induction speech at the Hall of
Fame, and okay, sure, there are probably a few pretty girls in the stands. Yes,
I remember the dreams, and it’s amazing how clear the images are.
When I close my eyes, I can smell fresh cut grass, see the
way the wind pulls the shadows of clouds across the field, like ships riding
upon waves of grass. It’s strange, you know, how our minds work. These little
things I didn’t notice when I played are so vivid now, all these later.
I recall sitting in the back of the bus, late at night on the
way home from road trips, talking, laughing, listening to music, trying to
sleep, thinking of the game we just played and dreaming of the one we’d play
tomorrow, when I’d be on the mound again, throw my last warm up pitch and
instinctively turn and duck as the catcher threw down to second. The ball would
hiss as it passed overhead, and the ump would yell play ball, or just point at
me, and I’d stand on the mound – no runs, no hits, no walks – an absolutely
perfect moment, life renewed, surrounded by my friends, ready to go to war.
How do you tell a kid to appreciate that
while it’s happening? What words do you use to explain how much he’ll miss it
later, that no matter how good his life turns out to be, really, no matter how
good, it’s never quite like this again? You only have 10 bucks in your right
pocket, but you don’t have to pay a mortgage and anyway, you have laughter, you
know, the deep pure hearted kind of laughter, in your left pocket and the best
thing, yeah, the best thing is that you can still be anyone, you can go
anywhere, everything is possible.
We didn’t understand any of it, where we were in life, and
how quickly it would pass. So I guess it’s true when they say, “Youth is wasted
on the young.” I try, though, and I guess that’s what matters most. Then again,
maybe youth isn’t for the young, but for the rest of us. Sometimes it’s so much
better watching the kids, to see them having a great time, than it was to live
through it.
My coach at IVCC Russ “Monk” Meyer was a famous major league
player and a pitching coach for the New York Yankees single A minor league team
in Oneonta, N.Y., while I was in school. He used to call and “check up on me”
during the summers from the clubhouse at the field in Oneonta. I could always
hear the laughter and talk in the background, voices I now know belonged to guys
like Bernie Williams. We played the second game of the tournament in that
stadium Friday night, and well, I didn’t go to coach Meyer’s funeral and
realized I’d never said goodbye to him, my coach, my friend.
He always told me I’d come back to baseball some day, that
I’d never be happy until I did, feel the way I do right now. He was right.
Goodbye, Monk, and thank you.